


Untitled Flamingo Game

by vienna_salvatori



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22830163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vienna_salvatori/pseuds/vienna_salvatori
Summary: It's a lovely morning in SHIELD, and you are a horrible flamingo.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	Untitled Flamingo Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kuroshi44](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuroshi44/gifts).



Margaret “Peggy” Carter retires from her position as the Director of SHIELD in 1995.

New director Nicholas Fury has less than three days to settle into his shiny new office before he receives word of an important visitor. Stark Industries has been supporting SHIELD since its inception, and apparently wants to meet Fury to see what direction he’s taking the agency in. At least, that’s what Fury assumes. He can’t think of another reason for a Stark delegation to be arriving at this particular time.

Fury signs off on the visitor’s pass with barely a second glance. He’s a busy man, and delaying the Stark visit can only cause trouble down the line. No reason to aggravate Obadiah Stane and Tony Stark this early on, even if Anthony is the only one coming-

No, hold on. He stares at the page, frowning slightly.

He’s _certain_ Howard’s kid is called Anthony.

So who the hell is “Bernard Stark”?

* * *

‘There is no way they’ll let this happen, Anthony’, his godmother tells him.

‘Sure they will’, Tony says distractedly, not looking up from his half-disassembled car. ‘Stark Industries money is too important. Of course they’ll just sign the form.’

Peggy heaves a sigh, and settles herself on one of the workbenches. She’s been a lax godmother, she knows, but Tony doesn’t seem to hold it against her. He’s not exactly overjoyed to see her, but he’s let her into his workshop without argument, which- if he’s anything like his father was- is quite an achievement.

‘Nicholas isn’t an idiot’, she warns him. ‘Some of the others in SHIELD? Perhaps. But Nicholas will notice something is wrong. He’ll be expecting trouble.’ 

‘No one’s going to expect Bernard, Peggy’, Tony grins. ‘They’ll assume he’s a cousin or something.’

‘They might not expect Bernard, but that doesn’t mean they’ll let him in.’

‘They’ll have to, if they give him a visitor pass first!’

Peggy shuts her eyes for a moment, feeling far too exhausted, even though she’s probably half responsible for this absurd idea. Damn Howard for buying that blasted bird; damn him for being an absent enough parent that Anthony considered said bird to be practically family, damn _her_ for mentioning the absolute hell Jarvis went through trying to keep track of the blasted thing just before telling her godson that he should really establish a rapport with her SHIELD successor.

‘Come _onnn_ , Aunt Peggy. Crack a smile. Won’t it be funny, watching all those superspy types run around chasing a flamingo?’

Yes. Yes it will be. Peggy curses the last vestiges of loyalty she feels towards the organisation she founded which mean she can’t fully revel in the utter insanity her godson is going to inflict.

* * *

Edwin Jarvis drives the car up to the entrance of the Triskelion, forcing himself not to glare at the passenger seat too much. He has _history_ with his passenger.

The guard at the gates looks rather bored, until he mentions the name “Stark”. Then he’s practically rushed through the checkpoint, with only the slightest frown directed towards the covered cage in the front seat. Jarvis does not smile, because this ridiculous plot is still going to fail spectacularly any moment now.

He makes it to the next checkpoint before he needs to exit the vehicle. A young man hurries out of the building towards them. ‘Agent Phil Coulson’, he says, eagerly. ‘You must be Edwin Jarvis, Mr Stark’s butler. I’ve read all the files about the work you did with Director Carter. A pleasure to meet you, sir.’

A moment later, a short Asian woman vaults over an ornamental hedge and jogs over to join Coulson. ‘Please ignore him’, she tells Jarvis. ‘He never knows when to keep his mouth shut. I assume you’re here for the Stark visit?’

Jarvis gives them a polite nod. ‘Do you have a visitor pass for Mr Stark?’

Agent Coulson withdraws it from his pocket, and then frowns. ‘Where is he, Mr Jarvis? I assumed-’

Jarvis swings open the passenger side door, removes the cage containing Bernard, and tosses the cover back onto the seat. Coulson blinks. At his side, the woman begins to smile.

‘This is Bernard Stark’, Jarvis says, tiredly. ‘Anthony considers him to be something of an older brother, and trusts his judgement on this matter.’

‘That is… most irregular’, Coulson offers. ‘Tony Stark didn’t want to come himself?’

‘Of course he didn’t’, the woman snorts. ‘Would you come inspect a SHIELD base if you could troll everyone and send a bird instead?’

‘Melinda!’

‘Okay, maybe not you, Phil. But would anyone _else_ willingly spend the day touring a SHIELD base when they could send a bird?’ Coulson attempts to look disapproving, but his eyes are glittering and his mouth crinkling into a smile. Jarvis likes them, he realises. He hasn’t always gotten on with Peggy’s colleagues, but these two- these two he thinks he could learn to trust.

Bernard honks, obnoxiously. Coulson loses his battle against his laughter, momentarily, then recovers his professional mask remarkably quickly. ‘I could give… Bernard… a tour of the base?’ he offers.

‘D’you think we could just give him his badge?’ Melinda asks instead, with an absolutely wicked gleam in her eyes. ‘After all, I’m sure the representative sent by our benefactor has full right to access whatever he likes.’

Jarvis shudders. ‘That is a terrible idea, Madam. I have known this beast for decades now, and he will cause untold chaos if allowed to roam unchecked.’

She shrugs. ‘Untold chaos sounds good to me. And it’s not like he’ll be able to get into anything that important, right?’

Coulson considers the idea, turning the visitor badge for one “Bernard Stark” over in his hands. ‘I could attach it to his wing?’ he offers.

‘This is asking for catastrophe, I assure you.’

But Melinda is already opening the cage, lifting Bernard out with surprising gentleness for someone who is most definitely a field agent. Coulson steps forward, clipping the badge to Bernard’s feathers, careful not to harm him. ‘This is going to be the best prank since you climbed the air vents and stuck all of Fury’s office furniture to the roof with the new electromagnets’, Coulson tells her. Melinda smirks. ‘Reckon we can get Bernard here _into_ Fury’s office?’

Jarvis can’t quite believe this is happening, but apparently, it’s out of his hands now- literally. He drops the cage back into the car, glaring at the devil in pink as Melinda sets him gently on the ground. Bernard ruffles his feathers, poking at the badge in bewilderment.

‘He’s getting on in years’, Jarvis admits, as the blasted bird tries once, twice, three times, to get the badge off. When it doesn’t budge, he huffs, and takes a tentative step forwards. ‘It may take him a little while to get going.’

All of a sudden, Bernard lets out an astonishingly loud HONK, startling several nearby agents who had been dutifully ignoring the flamingo exchange taking place. At least one drops her coffee with a shriek.

If flamingos could look proud, Bernard did. He spreads his wings and flaps awkwardly, not really flying, in the direction of a small cluster of sci-tech agents. They yelp and scatter in all directions.

The game, as they say, is afoot.

* * *

‘He’s in’, Tony cackles. As in, literally cackles. Like a mad scientist. Or a hacker who’s just managed to get himself into a complex system.

This, Peggy reflects, is not actually a bad representation of what just happened. They have apparently managed to get into SHIELD’s largest base, solely by sending Jarvis up to the front door holding a flamingo.

Mad indeed.

They have managed to breach the security of a black ops, extra-governmental agency, with a large pink bird. Tony has now decided to hack their security feeds solely to watch their progress. Peggy knows she should be worried about how easily he did that, but also, it isn’t her job anymore, and she really wants to see this.

With the unerring sense of direction that always drove Jarvis nuts, Bernard has headed straight for the closest source of food- which, right now, appears to be the cafeteria on the ground floor. It isn’t quite lunchtime, but all the analysts and support staff with really boring jobs have skived off work a few minutes early, so it’s full enough.

None of them are expecting the flamingo. Bernard gets a few laughs when he first appears, and quite a few amused head shakes when agents begin spotting the name tag attached to his wing. Peggy doesn’t need to read lips to know that one of the central tables is currently debating whether this prank was pulled by Sci-Tech Academy, or the Academy of Operations. After all, it’s not like the Stark inspection is going to be performed by a flamingo. Surely.

Well, if they don’t learn to expect the unexpected, they probably won’t do very well in SHIELD, Peggy thinks, and carefully does not acknowledge that if she hadn’t met this particular bird before, she would have dismissed it as no threat as well.

Then, one of the agents- one of the desk-based ones, accounting or logistics or something- makes a mistake he will likely regret for the rest of his life.

He takes a prawn out of his pad thai and tosses it in Bernard’s direction.

Less than two minutes later, the entire cafeteria is empty, and Bernard is proudly strutting along the tables, taking his pick of the abandoned lunches.

* * *

‘Meeting rooms?’ Coulson asks, peering around a corner like he’s on an undercover op and scanning for hostiles.

He is, indeed, scanning for hostiles. Specifically, anyone who may prove particularly hostile to their visitor. It would be horrible if something happened to the poor bird.

‘I don’t know how much chaos he could do in those’, Melinda says. She’s on the other side of the corridor to him, scanning their surroundings in much the same manner. Phil reckons they must look pretty cool, as long as one ignores the fact that they’re stalking the corridors of their own base to protect a flamingo.

‘Logistics, then’, he says. Melinda shakes her head. ‘What’s he going to do, mess up a spreadsheet?’

‘So what do you suggest?’

Melinda smiles. It is not a nice smile. It is a terrifying smile. Phil is so very, very, _very_ glad they usually team up for prank wars. Melinda May on a pranking spree is honestly more terrifying than a good three-quarters of the terrorist groups he’s tangled with. Four-fifths, maybe. The only group definitely worse than her were the ones who used a nail gun on his foot, solely because he can’t see her doing that to anyone, ever. Probably.

‘Isn’t sci-tech running some training exercises in the forensics laboratory?’ she asks, completely failing to make it sound like an innocent inquiry. Phil finds himself nodding regardless. ‘Well, there’s a reasonable chance they’ll have to do some of that stuff in the field, right? Surely, it’s only fair that we give them the opportunity to work with a source of stress nearby. Before they have to do it in an actual dangerous situation.’

‘Right’, he hesitates. ‘Because we’re such good, supportive co-workers, and we want to make sure they’re able to do their best and aren’t going to go into the field unprepared.’

‘Exactly.’

Without any further discussion, they carefully shepherd Bernard into the elevator. He seems remarkably pliable, especially in comparison to the utter disasters they’ve witnessed when others tried to manoeuvre him. Perhaps he senses the opportunity for mischief, and is therefore happy to play along.

A few moments later, they emerge on the level with all the laboratories. Vaguely curious, Phil scoops up Bernard, and holds his pass to the lock. There is a flash of green light, a beep, and it swings open. Bernard honks, struggles out of Phil’s grip, and plods forward.

Phil and Melinda exchange a glance, then disappear back into the shadows. Just because they’ll facilitate the bird’s chaos doesn’t necessarily mean they want to get blamed for it.

* * *

It’s like watching a train crash, or an op which has gone completely off-script. Peggy doesn’t want to watch, really, but she can’t tear her eyes away.

Bernard leaves a trail of chaos in his wake. SHIELD is probably going to need to find a new expert to lead the forensics course, the current one still hasn’t emerged from the cupboard. The admin department have retreated entirely. Every single one of them has decamped to the communal tearoom on the southeast corner, joined by Jarvis, who is soaking up their sympathy over having to deal with the bird for something like fifty years now. It looks like half of the security staff are planning on joining them.

Anthony has given up all pretence of doing whatever he was planning to do to his car, and is instead sprawled on the floor of his workshop, laughing hysterically. The only thing stopping Peggy from joining him is the fact that the floor is a long way down, and she’s old enough now that getting back up again could prove a challenge.

‘I love my brother’, Anthony gasps, between bursts of laughter. ‘I think he’s caused more chaos than even I could! Damnit, Bernard, way to set the standard! Now I don’t just have to live up to Captain Americas perfectness for dad, I’ve got to somehow match that!’

Peggy glances over at her godson, concerned, but before she can say anything, Bernard somehow manages to navigate the elevator on his own, slamming bodily into the button for every single floor. The hapless agent he had followed glares in disbelief, and Tony falls into hysterics once again.

Another screen has been tracking two of the birds’ co-conspirators. Melinda May drops out of a ceiling vent into the now abandoned forensics lab, landing near-silently on one of the tables. Phil Coulson follows her, clumsy in comparison. The two of them consider the chaos, and high-five each other.

Then Coulson smiles, faintly, and says something too softly for Tony’s frantically hijacked microphone to pick up. May’s answering grin probably could have terrified HYDRA into submission.

The pair disappear back into the vents, still smirking, and Peggy almost feels sorry for her replacement.

Almost.

* * *

Fury glares at the flamingo which has torn up all the paperwork on his desk.

The flamingo does not glare back, because that would be stupid. Flamingos do not have the kind of malicious intent to glare. They _can’t_. They’re birds, and not even particularly smart ones.

Fury still can’t shake the feeling that the bird is laughing at him. It’s a feeling that only gets stronger when the bird marches straight across his keyboard, typing random letters into the password box.

Quite by chance, the computer unlocks.

‘Oh no you don’t, you-’ he charges at the bird, waving his hands to try and drive it back. The creature honks in alarm at his approach, flaps its own wings in a good imitation of a feather duster, and whacks Fury across the nose with something hard and plastic.

He stumbles, eye watering, more shocked than actually hurt. The bird lands awkwardly on the desk in front of him, and honks again.

Fury glares at it again, and his look intensifies when he spots the visitor badge pinned neatly to one wing. “Bernard Stark”. Of course.

… No, not of course. Even _he_ hadn’t quite reached the level of paranoia necessary to suspect bright pink birds of espionage. (He’d restrained his suspicions to humans and cats, so far.) Apparently, he needs to increase security checks on other animals as well.

‘Are you really coming for my remaining eye, you overconfident feather duster?’ Fury growls. The bird- Bernard Stark, apparently- honks in what sounds like satisfaction. ‘You are.’

He engages in a staring contest with the bird. It’s times like these when he regrets his career choices.

‘You aren’t even cute’, he grouses. ‘If you were cute, I wouldn’t object as much. Instead, you’re just a goddamn annoying ball of feathers that forms a major security risk!’

There is a muffled snicker from inside the vents, and Fury curses. He _knows_ that voice. And if Coulson is here, then that means…

‘I thought I threatened to send Melinda May to do the paperwork backlog for a remote base near the north pole if she touched my office again.’ The snickering stops.

There is an awkwardly long silence, but Fury does not crack. He is a very talented spy, thank you very much, and he is not going to go spilling his guts just because of an awkward moment.

The awkward moment drags on. And on.

And on.

Eventually, there is the sound of someone shifting their weight around in the vents, and someone else trying very hard not to make a sound when the first person stands on their foot.

‘To be fair,’ Coulson says, ‘Melinda _didn’t_ touch your office. Bernard just happened to get into it. Sir.’

‘And you’re just lurking in the vents for something to do, then?’

‘We’re… cleaning?’

‘Cleaning?’

‘Very dusty’, comes the muffled reply.

There is another awkward pause. This time, he’s pretty sure he can hear Melinda May trying very hard not to sneeze.

‘Well, if you’re so interested in cleaning, I’m sure I can find a base with lots of floors to mop-’

‘HONK.’

Bernard, apparently objecting to the possibility of punishment for his… spectators? supporters? entourage? chooses this particular moment to start moving again. He flies into Fury’s face once more, a ball of pink feathers and beak and legs. Fury instinctively throws up his hands to protect himself.

And Bernard steals his ID card right out of his fingers, grabbing it in one clawed foot before flying towards the door.

Well, flying might not be the right word. More… falling ungracefully in slightly slow motion. Regardless, he hits the ground in what could charitably be called a controlled descent, flaps along the floor, and escapes out the door, still clutching Fury’s ID.

The one ID card in this building which will let him into _anything_. He swears again and charges after the creature, coat flapping behind him. If that bird makes it into the weapons stores-

Bernard’s honk of triumph almost manages to cover the sound of two of his best agents cheering from the vents. Cheering for the bird, of course. Heaven forbid they actually support him.

That’s it, Fury decides. Those two are going to be stuck on paperwork duty for _years_. He’ll issue the order right after he gets his ID back.

And makes a rule against flamingos on SHIELD bases.


End file.
